Get Well Soon with SAP HANA

Demand for high-quality professional medical care services in South Korea is strong. Seoul’s National University Hospital treats patients like little Ra-hee, who was admitted after suffering an allergic reaction to a vaccine.

“She began having spasms about 14 hours after being immunized,” says her father. “I was in a complete state of shock and brought her straight here.”

Medical personnel at the hospital were able to give her the necessary treatment immediately. This was in part thanks to a new medical data warehouse that the hospital began deploying recently to ensure that medical staff lose no time in identifying the correct drugs and dosages to treat patients like Ra-hee.
The project recently got second place at the SAP Innovation Award.

“A conventional database is no use when you need to sift through mounds of data and analyze it fast, which is why it was a priority for us to update our IT system with the very latest technology,” says Dr. Hwang Hee of National University Bundang Hospital in Seoul. “It used to take us days or even months to find matching historical datasets.”

Real-time analysis promotes high-quality diagnoses

Hospitals generate mountains of data that is created when health personnel conduct blood tests or medical examinations and record information about medical conditions. Often, this data can play a key role in helping physicians make an accurate diagnosis – so it’s essential that they are able to access it without delay. SAP HANA can make a major contribution here.

So-Young Moon, a clinical indicators manager, is impressed by the speed of the new database. “Before we deployed SAP HANA, it took between one and two months to analyze our quarterly figures. Now, we can do it in just one or two seconds.” This near-instant analysis capability means that physicians in Seoul can pinpoint suitable and effective therapies and treatments much faster than before and also avoid prescribing unnecessary medication.

As for Ra-hee, her spasms have already become less frequent and she’s feeling a whole lot better.